Like Crazy ***½

Director: Drake Doremus
Cast: Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence
Charlie Bewley, Alex Kingston, Oliver Muirhead, Chris Messina

Why is it that the most romantic films always have to tear through your soul, grab your heart from your chest and then smash it to pieces? Like Crazy does this and more, yet even with the eventual feeling of devastation that remains, one can't help but fall in love with it.
Call it masochism, call it hope, or call it plain insanity, but the movie proves just how humans seem drawn to misery and pain in the search for a larger truth, proof, perhaps, that we are not alone.
Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones play Jacob and Anna, star-crossed lovers who must battle the evil forces of immigration to be together. Anna is a British student who overstays her US visa to be with Jacob over a languorous summer in Los Angeles. When she tries to return to the US, after attending a family thing in the UK, she is denied entrance and sent back to England, creating an obstacle for their blossoming relationship.
The rest of the film then divides itself between the two countries, as we see the young lovers trying to remain together even if they're apart.
Despite the Victorian sounding nature of the plot twist, the film is far from being an exercise in forced romance, instead it goes to the heart of love and wonders out loud, what makes one commit such inhuman acts in order to fulfill a romantic longing. Is love really that important in the face of emotional destruction and practical living?
Watching Jacob and Anna try to survive without one another is often more painful than inspiring, which makes the movie ring true in a universal manner. Yelchin once more brings his down-to-earth ease to Jacob, providing him with a stoicism that works as a perfect reflection of his heartbreak and Jones is just astonishing as Anna. She breathes violent life into the movie, making her character's actions ring true in a way that's both extremely cinematical and hurtfully realistic. She can be compared to Kate Winslet's delicious Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in how you can see how flawed they are, but still can't help but fall for them. The supporting cast is also great, including Lawrence as a girl in love with Jacob and Muirhead and Kingston as Anna's supportive parents.
It doesn't require much film knowledge to realize that Like Crazy draws deep from its writer's personal experience. In fact Doremus, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ben York Jones, has revealed that the film was inspired by one of his relationships; however do not look into his biography further if you want to have your own idea of what happens after the uncathartic finale in the movie.
With all of its pain and bitterness, Like Crazy somehow escapes pure tragedy by drawing from the power of humanity to remind us that our most important love affair is the one we have with ourselves.

Cemetery Junction **

Director: Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant
Cast: Christian Cooke, Tom Hughes, Jack Doolan
Felicity Jones, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson, Anne Reid
Ricky Gervais, Ralph Fiennes

It's often said that most comedians eventually want to venture into drama. If so, Ricky Gervais is staying true to that saying and along with The Office partner Stephen Merchant takes on the coming-of-age film intending to prove they aren't only good at making us laugh.
Although judging from this by-the-numbers drama, laughter might be the thing they're best at.
Set in 1970's England, the film follows the lives of three friends: the idealistic Freddie (Cooke) who wants to leave town and make something for himself, rebel factory-worker Bruce (Hughes) and the crass Snork (Doolan).
Freddie starts working as an insurance salesman for a ruthless self-made entrepreneur (Fiennes in top villainous form) and rekindles with an old flame (Jones) who happens to be the boss' daughter and is engaged to one of his co-workers (Goode).
He begins to realize there's more to life than he though at first and begins to stray from his friends who remain childlike in their world vision.
But the small town philosophy isn't limited to his friends, at home Freddie has to deal with his father (Gervais) who thinks his son feels superior to him because he wears a tie to work.
In a nutshell it's the story we've seen a million times; will Freddie leave this town or stay behind?
The film feels episodic and predictable and the characters are never fully realized so that we think of them as whole human beings.
There are some funny situations and the cast is nothing if not splendid! Watson is at her subdued best, Goode makes his good looks evoke the chilly carelessness his character needs and Reid is hilarious as Freddie's grandmother.
Yet the movie is as instantly forgettable as the experiences the characters are having should be unforgettable.

Chéri ***

Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Friend, Kathy Bates
Felicity Jones, Frances Tomelty

It's become almost a standard of sorts for maturing actresses to eventually play a character that deals with aging.
Michelle Pfeiffer is no exception; in "Chéri" she plays Parisian courtesan Lea de Lonval who is contemplating retirement until she takes on one last mission of sorts.
Her frenemy, and former colleague Charlotte (Bates) asks her to take on her 19-year-old son, the title Chéri (Friend) and seduce him to make his decadent lifestyle stop.
Thinking this will be like stealing candy from a child, Lea suddenly finds herself six years later still having an affair with the young man and, gasp, falling in love with him.
The difference about Pfeiffer, regarding other actresses in similar roles, is that she's exceptionally radiant. At 51, she looks as breathtaking as she did in the 80's, her goddess like bone structure only serving to highlight the, socially contradictory, fact that for all her beauty she's never stopped being a phenomenal actress.
She takes on Lea ferociously, but escapes all nasty "cougar" clichés by embracing her physical qualities but merely using them as the stage for the stirring emotions within her character.
Uttering lines with acidic contempt (from the Christopher Hampton adaptation of a couple of Colette novels) she's utmostly delicious.
"It's her turn now, mine is over" she declares coldly to Chéri when he announces his mother has arranged a marriage for him.
But Pfeiffer's strengths don't lie in her line delivery but in the quieter moments when we find her all by herself (the last scene has a hauntingly beautiful quality that's practically a love song to the actress).
Bates is at her scenery-chewing best, her exchanges with Lea give the film all the social subtext director Frears wants us to understand from the bélle epoque.
The only thing these women have in common, besides their profession, is their dislike for each other.
Friend is also rather good, giving Chéri decadent qualities worthy of disdain and admiration, plus his chemistry with Pfeiffer is delightful.
What keeps the movie from transcending to another level is the mishandled way Frears tries to wrap up everything in the end. The movie has an uneven trajectory during which it tries to fit into several genres, coming up with something that lacks the punch for any of them.
While the art nouveau inspired art direction and costumes are a sight to behold, Frears has a hard time relating to them (despite his effective, if a bit forced narration).
The director never plunges into the mind set of his characters and sometimes they come off looking as actors in a play aware of the audience and expecting their acceptance.
Lucky for Frears he had Pfeiffer, who not only never suffers from this, but finding what lies in Lea's heart achieves a kind of divine humanity.